


Mirror Game

by MirrorMystic



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Mirror Imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 11:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16702039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: They were like mirrors of each other, back when they were kids. When they got older, they started seeing the cracks in the glass.(Catra and Adora then, now, and someday.)





	Mirror Game

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even done watching the whole season and I desperately need these two to hug it out. There's a *lot* of baggage to unpack there, when it comes to resentment, favoritism, and living in an abusive household, but no matter how long it takes, I do hope they get there. Someday. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the read. ^^

~*~  
  
**I** .  
  
There are no mirrors in the Fright Zone.  
  
That may surprise you. Or it might not. After all, the Horde was not a place for self-reflection. Sure, there were times when you might catch a glimpse of yourself in a dataslate, or in the plasteel windows of the observation deck above the training hall. But, beyond the simple standards of uniform code, it wasn’t the place of a Horde Cadet to reflect on themselves. Everything was about the unit; the mission. Discipline, not vanity.  
  
For someone as pretty as Adora, Catra thinks that’s a damn shame.  
  
She tells her so, in as many words, one morning as they’re gearing up for their next training sim. And Adora, being adorable and also kind of stupid sometimes, thinks Catra’s joking.  
  
Adora laughs. “Come on, Catra. I’m not like _you_ .”  
  
It’s such a little thing, but it snags in Catra’s head, like her claws on Adora’s blanket when someone tries to wake her up too early. The thought that Adora thinks she’s pretty.  
  
And that they’re not as alike as they thought they were.  
  
When they were younger, Adora and Catra played a game where they would use each other as their mirrors. It started innocently enough; a question as simple as “how do I look” can become a rabbit hole when you’re inside a barracks with no mirrors. They had a lot in common, after all. Two girls in a mostly-male barracks, two orphans under Shadow Weaver’s watchful gaze.  
  
Catra still remembers the first time Adora had gasped and pointed out “your eyes are different colors!”, long before either of them could spell ‘heterochromia’, much less know what it meant.  
  
“Do you spend a lot of time looking in my eyes?” Catra had teased, back then. But she had looked at young Adora, this dumb kid with a gap-toothed smile and a heart too good for this place by far, and thought, for the first time, “I would follow this girl wherever she went”.  
  
It turns out, following Adora’s lead and using her as her mirror would leave Catra, as a teenager, just a little messed up in the head.  
  
But it started out innocently enough.  
  
~*~  
  
**II** .  
  
It was Catra who had turned the mirror game into a competition.  
  
Not content to just use the mirror game as a way to make sure they looked presentable to their instructor, Catra decided to make it a challenge. “Now that you’ve got your eyes on me,” Catra would say, “do what I do. Exactly.”  
  
And Adora would meet Catra’s eyes with that little daring smirk that gave Catra a funny feeling in her chest, and growl out “you’re on”.  
  
Again, it starts so innocently. Little things you might actually do while looking in a mirror, like making faces, or fixing your hair. But it would become little touches, little quirks, little taps on the shoulder or arching your back, stretching, twisting around one another almost as if it were a dance.  
  
Years later, as they danced together at the Princess Prom, Catra and Adora, for all their racing thoughts and creeping worries, would be reminded of the mirror game: of Catra taking the lead and daring Adora to follow her every move. In the mirror game, it wasn’t about who won, but who lost; Adora, by being too slow or too clumsy to mimic Catra perfectly; or Catra, by making a misstep, by losing her balance and going too far.  
  
Unfortunately for Adora, Catra had excellent balance and was more flexible than Adora could ever be. There were plenty of days they were late for training because they’d been playing the mirror game in the locker room and Adora was too stubborn to admit defeat.  
  
Now, as then, life was much like the mirror game. Catra and Adora, their eyes locked on one another, moving perfectly in sync, a silent but constant struggle as to who would lead, who would follow, and who would fall. Almost like dancing.  
  
But this wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a dance.  
  
And, if Adora had anything to say about it, it wasn’t a fight, either.  
  
They stare each other down, beaten and bloodied, both of them panting for breath. In the distance, armies were colliding-- but this battle was closer, more intimate and more painful than anything history would remember.  
  
Adora emerges from a bloom of light, swiping the Sword of Protection aside. Catra bares her fangs, grinning, eager.  
  
“What’s the matter?” Catra demands. “Finally got tired of wearing that stupid get-up? Tired of wearing a face that doesn’t fit?”  
  
“That’s not me,” Adora says, resolute. “And _this_ isn’t you.”  
  
So _righteous_ . It makes Catra want to puke.  
  
“...You don’t know _anything_ about me,” Catra seethes.  
  
“Maybe not,” Adora admits softly. “...Not as much as I should have, and believe me, Catra, I’m _sorry_ . If I had known, I…” Adora swallows hard, and shakes her head. “...Catra, please. I don’t want to fight you anymore. You know I’d never _want_ to hurt you.”  
  
Of course she didn’t. Catra knew that. Adora would never knowingly hurt her. Adora would never knowingly let her get hurt-- but there was a lot that Adora didn’t know. And a lot that Shadow Weaver didn’t let her see.  
  
Adora. The golden girl. So bright she couldn’t see the darkness under her bed, or the monster in her own shadow.  
  
Catra would hate her if she didn’t love her so much, but she’d hurt the same, either way.  
  
Catra seethes. She grits her teeth, curls her legs beneath her, and pounces.  
  
“When has it _ever_ been about what _we_ want?” Catra snarls.  
  
She dives through the air, while Adora stands there, waiting, reaching out her hand. The Sword flickers, as if in warning, but Adora forces the aura away. She looks up, and watches the light catch Catra’s claws as she comes crashing down.  
  
Their eyes meet, like mirrors, imperfect.  
  
Two hands outstretched.  
  
Another crack in the glass.  
  
~*~  
  
**III** .  
  
Someday.  
  
They’re on a rooftop, together. Etheria’s starless sky stretches out before them, boundless, beautiful. A tense silence stretches between them, heavy with the weight of things unsaid for too long. A world between them, and a world beyond.  
  
“I’m sorry,” they say together. Like mirrors, in the end.  
  
“I should have told you,” Catra mutters.  
  
“I should have known,” Adora sighs.  
  
There’s too much to say, and too many places to begin. For once in their lives, neither of them want to take the lead.  
  
They can’t look at each other. Adora feels hot, blinding, like staring into the sun with your eyes screwed shut. Catra feels lost, deep, dark and inscrutable, like the depths of the sea, or, perhaps, like midnight without a star in the sky.  
  
In the stillness, their hands bridge the gap between them.  
  
Catra breathes out a sigh that’s almost a sob, and Adora twines their fingers together without another word.  
  
~*~  
  
**IV** .  
  
They dream together. Like mirrors, imperfect.  
  
Catra dreams of treasured memories, bright stars in a dark void, their light dragging her back from the brink, pulling her from the depths of her ambition.  
  
In another life, she thinks, she would have followed Adora to the ends of the earth. A world where being in Adora’s shadow just meant being right behind her, no matter where she went.  
  
She wonders if she would have been happy there. Happier than she is now, certainly.   
  
Adora, meanwhile, dreams of hope. Of the bright lure of ‘someday’, pulling her through the war, through the pain of having to meet Catra’s mismatched eyes across a battlefield. Her shadow. Her mirror, imperfect.  
  
As Adora wakes up and glances, instinctively, at the foot of her bed, she doesn’t see Catra, curled up at her feet. She sees the Sword, shining in the morning light, and the clarity of her own reflection.  
  
As she gazes into the Sword, brighter and clearer than any mirror, Adora watches herself furrow her brow with resolve.  
  
In another life, Catra wouldn’t be in her shadow. She would be right beside her, where she’s always been, where she’s always belonged. Not ahead, not opposed, and not a single step behind.  
  
That could be this life.  
  
That _will_ be this life.  
  
“Not just ‘someday’,” Adora whispers, a prayer becoming a promise. “Somehow.”  
  
~*~


End file.
